The Hunters Mark

2

{ Damien ~ Daime-ee-an }

-✧-

C O R A woke up slowly, a surging pain soaring through her shoulder. She heard a clatter of chairs to her right as a blurry figure stood over her. Cora scrunched up her nose as one of the figures hair fell, moving her head out of the way.
"Cora! Oh my goodness don't give me a shock like that again!" the figure scolded, who Cora had now identified as Ilana. Cora fell silent.
"Cora? Cora! I know you're not asleep." Ilana shouted, annoyed. Ilana reached down and began to tickle Cora's sides. Not expecting the sudden touch, Cora flew forward and away from her attackers hands. The sudden movement sent a sharp pain down Cora's arm and she cringed. Despite being able to recover quicker than a normal human, her injuries still brought her immense pain.
"God, oh Lana, what happened? My head kills." Cora sighed, bringing her hand to her face.
"You were destroyed! I've never seen somebody take you down, and jeez Cor, how did you let her do that to you?" referencing to her busted lip and bruised cheek.
"Gee, thanks Ilana, real supportive." Cora said sarcastically, rubbing her aching shoulder.
"What day is it?" 
"It's Wednesday." Ilana replied, shrugging. Cora spluttered, suddenly wide awake and attentive. Wednesday! The arena was in two days! Cora's mind buzzed as she thought about everything she'd lost. She was at a real disadvantage. She had lost a days worth of training and she was injured, which meant she couldn't continue training until she was fully healed, and even then she wouldn't be at her full capability.
"Don't worry Cor, you didn't miss much. You missed Emilia's tantrum though!" Ilana laughed. "After she dislocated your shoulder, Elijah had a right go at her. Because he's her boyfriend at all she must have assumed he wouldn't do anything major. He gave her detention! Oh Cora, you should have seen the look on her face!" She couldn't contain her laughter, and Cora began to giggle, imagining Emilia yelling. The laughter died down quickly and a silence swept over the room. The vibration of Ilana's phone brought Cora out of her daydream. She watched as Ilana's face lit up at the text which she assumed was from Damien.
"Well, I'm going to let you rest. Damien's wondering where I am." She said, her fingers moving rapidly on her phone screen. Cora was right. Ilana  walked across the room, eyes glued to her phone before smiling and shoving her phone in her pocket.
"Cora." She said sternly, "Rest." Ilana searched for Cora's eyes when she said this, showing her seriousness. It made Cora rather uncomfortable and she suddenly found the hem of her shirt very interesting.
"Yes mum." Cora mumbled and Ilana giggled. She waved and skipped out the door, leaving Cora to deal with the chaos inside her head.

-✧-

E L I J A H had been helping Cora since Wednesday evening to prepare for the Arena. Even with Elijah's harsh training, Cora was still ridiculously behind. She was nervous to say the least. The arena wasn't optional, it was a test of your ability and Cora was going to be severely embarrassed. If she couldn't even beat, say, Damien, she would lose her position as a Gold and be ridiculed by Emilia. Cora didn't know whether she could listen to her cackles.
"Cora! Focus!" Elijah shouted, pinning her down for the third time. As Cora was weaker than usual, Elijah had decided to work on her defence skills instead and being tactical instead of using brute force. It was helpful, but all Cora wanted to do was punch Emilia in the face and Elijah wasn't giving her any advice on how to do that.
"You need to think about your moves, you can't just run at me and hope for the best. You also need to know how to deal with people who do run straight at you. If that happens you need to— Cora! Are you even listening?"
Cora flinched as she brought her attention back to an annoyed Elijah. She had been staring at a fluffy grey cat playing with some leaves outside. It was incredibly clumsy but cute, and Cora wanted to go and cuddle it.
"What were you staring at?" Elijah asked, following her gaze.
"Do you really want to know?" Cora asked, scuffing her feet against the hard floor.
"Not really." Elijah sighed. By this point he had realised Cora was a loss cause, and just hoped she wouldn't get too badly beaten up tomorrow.
"Go have a shower." He mumbled, throwing Cora her water bottle and leaving the training room. Cora caught it smoothly and nodded, yelling a quick 'thank you' to Elijah, who simply grunted. Instead of going for her shower, Cora decided to investigate the cat outside.
It was cold, freezing in fact, especially since Cora was in her gymwear. She approached the cat slowly, kissing her teeth to try coax it towards her. The cat wasn't satisfied and began to lift her tail in defence.
"I won't hurt you Kitty," Cora cooed, holding her hand out to the cat. "Come over here." She whispered. The cat had astonishingly blue eyes that glowed in the night's darkness. The cat looked at Cora's hand for a moment, and Cora thought the cat was going to let her stroke it but the cat seemed to stick out its tongue at Cora and scampered off into the distance.
"Stupid cat." Cora muttered in annoyance before she heard a faint howl echoing in the distance. Cora gulped and sprinted back inside for her shower, trying to ignore the hairs sticking up on her arm in fear.